It's Elizabeth's first day of "jardin". She did not want to go. "I'm probably not in Adi's class", she said. "When you get bigger, school stops being fun" (apparently cousin Erika told her this, growl...)

The teachers had recommended that Elizabeth and Adi be kept together and we had high hopes that one of her other friends would be in her class even if the girls were separated. After all, out of approximately 90 maternelle kids, she talked about nearly 30 on a regular basis. Of course, not one of those are in her new class. Not even one. She is in the same class as Elise (who is at our bus stop, and therefore a potential friend near us). Except Elise is moving in October. So pretty terrible news all around.

At least Elizabeth and Adi are in the same recess block so they can play together during their breaks, but Elizabeth was still pretty upset.

Most people I tell this too have one of two reactions. "It's no big deal. Calm down. Elizabeth will adapt." (subtext: I'm overreacting) This is not helpful, because of course Elizabeth will "adapt" but we aren't sending her to school in order to learn to adapt to less than ideal situations. In our view, there's no good reason why they shouldn't have put the girls together and many good reasons that they should have and it's frustrating to deal with the ensuing upheaval for no good reason.

The other reaction is to think this proof that the school is terrible and we should pull Elizabeth out immediately. Strangely, this is also not helpful. Last year Elizabeth loved school and surely it hasn't changed so much over the summer that this won't be true again. Hopefully.

Looking at it from a bigger perspective: we believe God is sovereign, and God is good. Stuff that happens, notably the decisions of temporal authorities, happen with His permission. He doesn't put any of us (including Elizabeth) in situations that are less than ideal except, for the very good purpose of teaching us to look to Him for our needs, in this case companionship. We pray Elizabeth will be able to do that in this case. Then there are the situations that God puts us in that appear to us to be less than ideal but, in His gracious foreknowledge, turn out far better than we could have imagined!